Two teardrop-shaped Covenant Seraph fighters roared over their hiding spot. A line of plasma erupted a hundred meters behind them an inferno that billowed
and blossomed straight toward his team.

Tom leapt to one side, activating his Jackal shield, holding it between him and the three-thousand-degree flames that would melt though his SPI armor like butter. The force field flared white from the radiation; his skin on his palms prickled with blisters. The plasma passed . . . thinned . . . evaporated. The air cooled.